


Surrogate

by slothesaurus



Series: The Batman & Son Drabble Collection [2]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2060109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slothesaurus/pseuds/slothesaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Damian wants his father to look at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrogate

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of those fics I'm proud of. I'm especially fond of how I wrote Colin here but ehh, me and my concerns. I had way more feelings rushing to the surface over Damian at the time I was writing this and frankly, if you were to read this after reading the current Batman & Robin series as well as any related books on Bruce and Damian after he came back, it'd seem really off since they've built a better relationship. 
> 
> But, again, at the time all I had to go on was Bruce doing the right thing by his biological son and Damian showing rare moments of being an actual ten-year old. Another thing for this fic was the relationship between Damian and Tim. I had a hard time deciding where they stood on hating and tolerating each other since they've both been horrible to each other but I guess in the end I decided on "HE IS UNWORTHY AND I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT" for both of them here. 
> 
> I could say a lot about these emotionally constipated poops and then some (then some = Dick Grayson, Cassandra Cain, Jason Todd, Alfred Pennyworth during the fallout of RIP Batman) but I digress.
> 
> Enjoy and chew my ear off on what you thought about it if you like :D

_He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  ~Clarence Budington Kelland_

-

Timothy Jackson Drake is not a wholly incompetent being. Far from it, in fact.

Damian admits this silently, in a minute corner of his mind reserved for frivolous, ridiculous things. Things like moon bounces and chunky, bright crayons sprawled across a thick blank sheet of oslo.

It flickers into the other spaces of his head more often than not, though. A clear, sharp reminder of why Damian has little of what was promised to him since his conception. And every time the idea rears its ugly head, the sickening notion that Drake is  _better_  than him in more ways than one— _happier_  than him in more ways than one crackles like crumpled paper burning in a fire. It chars and curls in on itself before dying into a pile of misbegotten ash and embers.

Damian can always almost smell the smoke that lingers. Because the thought is like Drake himself.

He lingers and clings to the Bat like the cloying scent of kevlar on skin. Lingers and clings to his father’s side.

And the man just lets him.

Sometimes Damian can’t breathe when they’re in the same room.

-

He rarely sees his father in or out of the cowl. It’s a displeasure he’s not keen on being guilty of. But Grayson, despite seeming like an incompetent twit for the most part, was, is and always will be the Boy Wonder for a number of reasons. He figures he can smooth out the emotional turbulence in his  _littlest brother_  by hosting a crash-course lesson in all things Bruce Wayne.

The acrobat spits out nightly stories about his mentor with the fondness and affection of a real son.

The details are utterly rich and vivid that it seems every word that wanders out of Grayson’s mouth tastes as sweet or as bitter as the moment was intended to be. After which the idiot laughs. It’s a pretty laugh, admittedly. A bright confetti pop casting rainbow hued streamers in all directions with a glittering, tinkling flourish.

It leaves the older vigilante in the predictable position of being nostalgic and worn. Then he tells Damian the same statement he putters every evening after recalling the joys of the past.

“Man, I’m tired.” He exclaims with the smile that kills little bit of him every single time.

Damian usually responds with a stinging comment that has a sharper than usual bite.

Grayson never reacts other than to ruffle his hair, merely brushes it off as Damian being Damian. Deep down the man knows it in his heart that the boy is grateful.

He isn’t.

Damian isn’t grateful because, unlike Grayson, he isn’t tired.

He’s never had any reason to be tired the way the first Robin is.

-

When Drake comes down with a serious infection and an almost-collapse of his immune system, Damian sees his father again for the first time in weeks. It only occurs to him then that he’s been counting the days, and mentally notes that he shouldn’t repeat the unnecessary habit in the near future.

Grayson and Pennyworth are both enraged and worried in equal amounts. Drake had idiotically neglected to mention that he no longer housed a spleen in that fragile body of his. But Father is silent. No hint of anger. Just frustration and the greatest amount of fear he’s ever seen.

He visits Drake as much as he can between missions and work. The man’s stress levels escalate each day the third Robin remains bed-ridden.

“We seriously need to get Bruce away from Tim.” Grayson suggests on the second week.

Damian raises an eyebrow at his partner.

“You know,” He shrugs sheepishly, “Distract him? Make him actually eat something or sleep for an hour. It’s not healthy for him to be hovering all the time.”

“And I honestly do not need two patients to look after, quite frankly.” Pennyworth interjects.

While the two older males discuss their concerns, Damian carries himself to Drake’s room without a word.

-

“Father.” He calls respectfully from the doorway.

The man is turned away from him, sitting beside Drake’s bed. He’s a hulking mass of black Armani and Paisley cloths silhouetted against the room’s sun-drenched windows.

There is a weak but steady beep cutting through Damian’s ears. The heart monitor.

“Damian.” Bruce calls back distantly. He’s overlooking Tim’s chart with a frustrated scowl.

“I was about to go down to the bunker. Perhaps…”

Bruce flips a page and goes over Tim’s white blood cell count.

“Perhaps you would like to join me for a spar.” The beep of the heart monitor echoes Damian’s own heartbeat. Steady but high-pitched. Hoping. Carefully, slowly building. Hoping.

Bruce continues reading and absentmindedly places a hand over Tim’s own.

Still hoping.

“Another time, Damian.”

Something in his chest falls into his stomach.

Damian nods and glares past Bruce to a portion of the bed where Tim’s leg ought to be under the blankets. He should try again. A different tactic, maybe. Something that would pull Father away from worrying over Drake and into doing something more productive.

He’s about to suggest another activity when Bruce replaces the clipboard onto the side table and sighs wearily as he steeples his fingers and leans a forehead on them.

“Once Tim gets better.” He promises.

Damian takes one last glance at the picture of his father with his predecessor before nodding again.

“Alright,” But as he starts to back out of the room he’s adding, “However, I highly doubt Drake will appreciate you ignoring your basic needs just to unnecessarily coddle him.”

Bruce stiffens.

He turns to look at him but Damian’s already down the hall and heading for the bunker.

Tim gets better after another week.

Damian wonders if his father will come home to spar with him.

A part of his mind, the one with colorful sketches and bouncy things, laughs at him.

It’s a ridiculous question that Damian already knows the answer to.

He just never wants to voice it out loud.

-

It’s eventually Colin’s doing that changes things.

They sit on the orphanage’s rooftop with a picnic basket Damian had requested Pennyworth to prepare. He had thankfully refrained from asking about particulars, but the butler gave him an amused look that warranted the child to slip one of Grayson’s red undergarments in with the white linens the next time he had the chance.

“You’ve been sad lately.” Colin remarks with his mouth around a fork, nibbling on it.

Damian stops from staring at the pollution-enhanced sunset across Gotham’s skyline and looks at him.

The Wilkes’ son slides the saliva-coated utensil out of his mouth, stabs it into another piece of the spinach moussaka he’d practically been licking, and pops it back into his mouth before looking back at him with a soft smile.

“What are you babbling about, Colin?”

Colin swallows appreciatively and licks his fork, “I dunno, Damian. You’re just…you keep staring off into distances more and you’re less…”

He makes a struggling gesture with his fork, twirling it around like he’s gathering some sort of invisible spaghetti in the air.

“I’m less  _what_?” He glares impatiently.

“Less…” Colin bites the end of his fork again, “feisty?”

“…  _Feisty_?”

Colin scrunches his nose and trades his fork for a mozzarella and pesto panini and starts to chew.

“I’ve just been getting this vibe from you lately that you’re sad because you’ve been quiet and more..um…broody.” The orphan speaks with his mouth full and dusts his lips with crumbs and smudges of basil, “And at first I thought it was just me but then I ran into Batman—”

Damian chokes on a sizable combination of Cantenbury cheese, honey-roasted almonds and seedless grapes, “ _What?_ ”

“I—well. I was on patrol the other night and I ran into Batman.” He shrugs before forcing the entire panini into his mouth as Damian watches on, horrified.

“You were sick that night.”

The Boy Wonder nods in a form of encouragement, silently remembering that he was, in fact, under the weather at the time.

He remembers the fever that kicked in and how much Grayson freaked out to Pennyworth about where the cold compresses were while Drake kept yammering on about Damian being too evil to even house germs due to the fact that they’d disintegrate on contact.

He’d sneezed in Tim’s face after that.

His father was…somewhere else.

“Damian?”

There’s a distractingly large piece of basil and oil near Colin’s upper lip as he turns to look at the redhead. He furrows his brow and tosses a napkin in the other’s face.

"Hey!’ Colin yelps as he grabs the offending article away from his face.

Damian looks back to the horizon and listens for the city. Car honks and sirens.

"You have basil on your face." He says simply.

Colin haphazardly wipes at his chin and misses the basil by a couple of inches.

"Tt," Damian scoots closer on their blanket and bats the boy’s hand away from the napkin to navigate it himself, "You are such a  _child_ , Colin.”

Colin pushes him away gently and tests his jaw for dislocation. Perhaps he’d been a little too aggressive in his wiping. “Probably because I  _am_  a kid, Damian.”

He hears Colin mumble a whiny ‘ow’ before unscrunching his face and smiling that soft, patient smile again. “And you’re one too.”

"I’m well aware of that,  _Wilkes_.”

A frown. Narrow and slender like a crowbar rusted over with old blood weighing down on that bright mouth ever so subtly. It’s something that doesn’t belong on Colin’s face and one thing Damian honestly never desires to elicit.

He purses his lips and suddenly finds great interest in the cat-themed pattern adorning their picnic blanket.

A fresh and juicy strawberry hits him squarely on the nose.

He catches it instinctively afterwards and looks up to glare at a similarly glaring Colin.

"What the hell is your  _problem_?” He’s trying not to squish the strawberry in his hand.

"Wilkes." Colin spits like it’s a curse.

His left eyebrow raises slightly, “What?”

"Whenever you want me to shut up or you don’t want to talk about something you stop calling me  _'Colin'_ and you start calling me  _'Wilkes'_  instead.”

Admittedly, it is the truth.

Damian is left gaping at that. He breathes deeply, narrows his eyes, and without anything better to do, pops the strawberry in his mouth and turns back to the newly-darkened sky. The reds and oranges have dulled into the soft hues of lavender and pink. Some of the brighter stars have begun to show through the city smog.

He hears Colin sigh in exasperation and then, a sudden shift in the atmosphere. The tenseness between them melts away like the fresh butter used for their croissants and leaves the unmistakable feeling of companionable silence.

"You don’t have to talk to me about it, you know."

Damian refuses to believe that Colin truly comprehends what “it” is and why “it” has caused him the current amount of “depression”.

"Just," There’s a hand no bigger than his own lightly— _cautiously_ —curling over his fingers, “Talk to someone, okay? Batman, maybe.”

Damian stiffens at the thought of deciphering  _which_  Batman he’s talking about and immediately tries to pull his hand away. But Colin isn’t as docile as everyone sees him to be and the strength keeping his hand in place is most definitely from Abuse.

"Batman’s really worried about you." Colin tries, gripping him tighter. His palm is sweaty and the realization makes Damian grimace slightly.

_Odd how he’s never expressed it._  He wants to say. But then the statement would only be true about one of the Batmen.

Damian thinks of Grayson and his asinine smile telling him about pointless facts about falcons. Thinks of Grayson and his inability to see that Damian will  _not_  give him a hug. Thinks of Grayson being Grayson with the laugh and the flips and the disgusting ovaltine drinks he and Drake constantly share.

He thinks of Grayson and sees bright, colorful crayons skating across paper.

His shoulders drop slightly, and the tension there ebbs away like rivulets of stress dripping down his back.

"Colin," He finally concedes, "Alright."

Colin squeezes his hand tighter before letting go and lunging for a mozzarella stick smothered in marinara sauce. “Good! I’m glad.”

"Tt."

The Batsignal suddenly looms in the sky like a fresh wound.

They both look up and then at each other knowingly.

"I have to—"

"It’s okay," Colin reassures him, "Go kick some butt!"

Damian nods gruffly and stands to dust himself off. He glances at Colin.

"You can have the rest. I’ll just come back for the basket and blanket tomorrow."

His friend visibly brightens at the thought of eating more of Alfred’s cooking but suddenly humbles himself into a more sheepish look, “I’ll…ah, I think I’ll eat a little more and give the rest to the sisters. They could use it for the orphanage.”

Damian cracks a slight smile. “I’ll just bring over more next time, you bottomless pit.”

"Hey!" His friend complains with minor annoyance and grins at him. "Only if you want to."

Colin raises his hand up and into a fist, smiling at Damian expectantly. 

Damian raises his own and firmly bumps his knuckles against Colin’s.

"I’ll always have your back, Damian."

"Yes, yes. And I’m  _very_  touched.” He rolls his eyes at him while heading for the edge of the rooftop.

"Batman too."

Damian stops and turns around to face him, body framed by the night sky and the distant Batsignal overhead.

His eyes soften slightly in a way that no one else would find significant.

"I’ll keep that in mind."

Damian stuffs his hands in his pockets and falls backwards into the night.

-

The next time Grayson sidles up next to him to start up another lengthy anecdote on his father’s many adventures, Damian cuts him off.

"Was it difficult?"

Grayson quirks an eyebrow at him in amusement, “Was what difficult?”

Damian steadies his voice and thinks of primary colors molded into wax cylinders and hidden in cheap, cardboard boxes.

"Making him love you?"

It’s like a gun’s been fired and Dick’s been hit dead on. Neither of them speak or breathe as a pregnant silence drapes over them.

He’s expecting the look he’s dreaded receiving from Grayson since his mother’s disowning of him. It’s the look that makes him want to scream his lungs out like that first time in his room about some silly laptop. The look that boils his blood and twists his stomach until he wants to purge every fiber of himself all over Pennyworth’s clean and waxed floors.

Pity.

But when Damian braves a glance up at Grayson, he’s surprised to find it isn’t there.

There’s something else on his face that’s far too potent to be wiped away by table napkins from a picnic basket or the failing of an immune system.

He can’t even think to place it. He’s never really seen it before. Yet it’s not entirely unwelcome.

Damian sits and waits for an answer.

Grayson gives him something else instead.

“ _I_  love you, Damian.”

Perhaps something just as good.

"Tt."

Or better.


End file.
